Update at Lake Murray

Sorry that it's been so long! I don't go to the lake as regularly as I usually do. The lake is full of geese and goslings now! Weird thing is that they don't creche there and many of the families fight.  I found this little guy all by himself with no other goslings his age. I took him to Project Wildlife a few weeks ago and haven't heard anything since.

More goslings from this season, including two very large families. One family has managed to retain and raise seven goslings almost to adulthood.

Geese are so fun and Canada geese are the best.

There have been several common gallinule chicks hatched at the lake from this one female. It appears that the female does everything. There is no sign of the male at all.

And, of course, ducklings. Unfortunately, I was gone for a while and didn't see a whole lot of ducklings. However, I did see a few broods have ducklings make it to flying age.

New baby geese and 2 new geese marriages

For those of you who have been trying to do some fishing on the north side of Lake Murray, San Diego, your wait is over. The goslings have hatched and the parents introduced them to the other family today far away from the nesting site. Right now, the two geese families are not mingling, but are keeping an eye on each other. When the two families met, both parents had a long discussion about something. I think they were telling each other which way they were going. The geese parents of the older goslings seemed a bit more demanding about the right of way. It's probably because they have more goslings, which makes them the more dominant family.

The new family has four bitties who possibly hatched yesterday or Monday:

One gosling was having a bit of a problem like it wasn't feeling well and sometimes lagged behind:

The older gosling parents were watching the younger ones as they walked away:

It looks like we have two new geese marriages or engagements. I think this is Squeaker and her older husband or fiance:

I couldn't get a photo of the other couple which seemed to include Grumpy, the sulking teenage gander which someone grabbed last weekend. Today, he seemed happy and was flying around with another, older goose. I think he was showing her his favorite spot near the dam. The other four are still milling around, begging for food. I'm hoping some of these guys will move to another area as the grass here is drying up with the drought.

By the way, I call them marriages because once geese pair up, they stay together for life and almost never cheat on each other.

Little lost loon

Yesterday, while I was counting birds at the lake, I came across this lost juvenile Pacific loon.

He seemed pretty relaxed, mostly grooming himself.

I've seen common loons at this lake (Lake Murray) before, but not Pacific loons.  During the winter, Pacific loons live near the ocean.  Later, someone saw an adult at the same lake.  I think the two might be calling to each other.  The other loon was quite a distance away from this baby. They might have arrived together.

I didn't take many other pictures that day because I was busy counting.  but, I added this one of a snowy egret chasing small fish around.  It's an awful lot of energy to spend on catching such small prey.

Just a little update

Though migration is going strong and there are tons of birds at Lake Murray right now, pretty much blanketing the water and trees, I haven't been taking too many photos in the last week or two.  I should take more.  Tomorrow, I am thinking of doing a bird count, so if I see anything rare, I will try to photograph it.

It looks like Smudge and her mate have three young killdeer with them.  There is either a male Cooper's hawk or a female sharp-shin hanging out in the area. I think it's a Cooper's hawk, but can't really see it because he won't stay still.

These three youngsters are in a fear-crouch.  They were screaming earlier.

Big Sissy has been renamed Pumpkin and she's been out in the open more often instead of hiding in the reeds all day.

Little Sissy is still known as Sissy (she is in the back of the photo).  Yesterday, I was really worried as she was having trouble breathing and was gaping and coughing. She seemed to get better after a few minutes, but I'm still worried.  Life in the wild is rough and one can't stay sick for long out there.

Trouble has found some mallard friends, mostly young mallards and maybe his brothers.

He's still very small, though, compared to the others his age.

A few random bird pics from Lake Murray

Just a few random bird pictures today.  I saw no shorebirds at all, nor have I see the scaup, yet.  I know there are a few down here in the San Diego area, just not at this lake.  However, there are more coots there now that I've ever seen before.

I haven't been taking many pictures because it's been really dark and cloudy in the morning, so the light is bad.

Here is a gull doing a courtship call to another gull a few feet away.

This ring-billed gull has some sort of tumor or weird feather growth.  It doesn't seem to be bothering him and when he shakes his head, it wiggles lightly.  He is full of energy, but it looks like he swallowed a golf ball.

Fancy-foot pigeon.  There were actually a few of them there.  I didn't see the racing pigeon, though I heard there was a strange looking pigeon who died there.  However, the racing pigeon really didn't look all that strange, kinda like this one.

Song sparrow with some kind of insect in its mouth:

Little Trouble:

And, the male ruddy ducks are following around the female teal again:

New young goose dropped off

About a week ago, a new young goose was dropped off at the lake that was the same age as the other youngsters.  She even follows people around making baby noises, so she's probably under a year old.  Someone overheard them say that they were releasing a goose that was injured back to the wild.  But, many speculate it might be the 6th baby goose who went missing at about a week or so old.  We don't know where it would have been all this time, though.

I think it might be a girl and she was following around people at the lake, including fishing boats.  I witnessed a pair of men possibly hitting her with one of their oars when she wouldn't leave them alone.  She seems fine and uninjured and I'm not sure if they hit her or hit the water near her.

The family doesn't want her around.

She was following me around far from the family when the outcast gander, Picked On, came over and led her back to the others.  She seemed to like him, but he showed no interest in her.

Here she is near the rest of the other geese, trying to get herself into the group.  I didn't want to get any closer so as not to ruin her chance to get accepted.  Later, though, I saw that she left on her own again.

Little trouble is still around and is changing his body feathers.  Here he is about five days ago:

Here he is, yesterday.  I can tell it was him by his bill color, body shape, and his fuzzy butt.  He's starting to get a green head.

I had a hard time finding him.  There are a lot of males in various stages of molt.  Here is another male:

Here is one with no gray on him at all, but a black bill.

Here is a video I put together on Trouble:

More of Snowie's babies

Despite it being very cold and rainy over the last couple of days, Snowie still has five ducklings.  The yellow duckling and a black duckling (the yellow one was picked up by a kid and he may have picked up a black one, but put them back and I did see them after he left) were missing. It's not unusual to lose two ducklings in three days, especially in the area she's raising them in.  The blue one seems to be struggling a bit and is the most affected by the cold weather. It is so cold that there is snow in the mountains.  The ducklings were cranky and peeping a lot.

When I first found the family, Snowie was fighting off another male, but her mate and son helped chase them away.  Then, her ducklings hid under the floating dock.  The gray duckling got stuck under there, but eventually found his way out.

Here is the gray duckling whom I named Baby Baby Blue:

Here he is with one of the three black Swedish ducklings:

The little mallard is still there:

Here is the another Swedish.  The ducklings showed no fear of me and ran right up to my feet.  It makes me wonder who else they run up to:

There's also news that the Canada geese at the lake are nesting and Picked-On seems to be feeling better and is eating again.

Snow goose still at Chollas Lake

Went to Chollas Lake to count birds and found that the snow goose was still there.

Here she is:

Chollas Lake has a lot of domestic fowl.  Here's my boy, Arrowhead:

I think this might be Mylee, the gosling from a couple of years ago:

Pretty muscovy girl:

Handsome muscovy boy: